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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

I live in a WinterCity.

I was out and about on Saturday when I happened across the WinterCity festivities outside Toronto City Hall. I checked out the world's largest snowglobe, which had people inside (they were pretending to ski, snowboard and skate). It was fun to see, although I would have liked to go into the globe myself.

I also arrived in time to watch the Kitonb Extreme Theatre Company. I've never seen anything like it (probably because I've never seen Cirque de Soleil - same kind of acrobatics). The colour, music and drama of the show was really set off by the snow that was coming down in a heavy flurry. It was pretty awesome.

I haven't posted much about my home city recently, I've been writing about my impressions of the other places I've visited. But Toronto is pretty cool, too. Check out these statistics from the official Toronto facts page.

-One quarter of Canada’s population lives within a 160 km radius of Toronto.

-There are 100 + languages spoken throughout the city.

-Over half of Toronto's labour force has a university degree or college diploma.

-Toronto is the largest and most important financial centre in Canada and the fourth largest important economic centre in all of North America. Only New York city, Chicago and Los Angeles are larger financial centres.

-North America's largest continuous underground pedestrian system, PATH, connects about 1200 stores and restaurants, 50 office towers, five subway stations, Union Station, six major hotels and several entertainment centres under Toronto's financial core. (that underground path is necessary since the winter winds are channeled into intense gusts between the downtown skyscrapers)

-Yonge Street is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest street in the world, stretching 1,896 km from the lakeshore in Toronto, north to Rainy River, Ontario, near the Minnesota border.